11:15 PM Dear Reader,

I got hit by the Blaster worm last week, which is why you're only reading from me now. Both of my family's desktop computers fell to the menace that affects only Windows XP/2000. Since I had an inkling they were both infected with something else other than Blaster (which can be removed by a nifty little program from Symantec), my dad and I decided to reformat the computers and reinstall everything.

Reinstalling is a complicated thing in the De Guzman family, particularly when my dad and I do it together. He wants to do something this way, and I want to do it that way. I get frustrated with his slowness in getting programs installed, while he is utterly confused by my quick clicking-away. The whole process usually ends with me just asking him to let me handle things while he should go off and rest.

Being the in-house computer "expert" (quote-unquote Ü) has its own advantages and disadvantages. For one thing, the members of the family come to me when they need help. That can be a tremendous ego boost, especially when I can solve the problem; however, it can get pretty irritating at times because I know the problem isn't a big deal, while they think it is. It's probably my own fault anyway, since whenever they want me to teach them to do something, I end up asking them to give me the computer seat for a while and I'd do it for them. I just don't have the patience to make a good teacher.

So I really shouldn't be complaining, then, since I've dug my own hole. Ü Actually, that brings to mind the whole issue of why I complain about anything in the first place. Running my mouth off about how shoddy the construction work is or how nobody's helping me on a project won't get anything done. Instead of expending energy just talking about a problem (which our politicians do a lot of), turn that energy toward getting the problem solved.

And now to lead you on a totally different tack, I recently finished watching Children of Dune on Hallmark Channel. Since it was cut up into three parts, and Hallmark never showed its installments one after the other, I'd only caught bits and pieces of the whole thing, until this week. (It didn't help that Children of Dune's premiere schedule bumped up against Taken on Star Movies.) And since I found the last copy of Dune Messiah (the second Dune book) at National Bookstore last Sunday, I have to say I'm quite a bit obsessed about the whole Fremen glow-in-the-dark eyes thing.

11:10 AM As you can see, I'm back at Dijurido.net. I truly love this domain. Thanks again Selene!

I've gotten a new pair of contact lenses, but I think the optometrist gave me the wrong grade for one eye because I've been getting these terrible headaches the past week. I tried switching the lenses around, and it helped somewhat, but you know that feeling you get when you just know something's wrong? That your body is telling you something? Anyway, I'm going to see if I can just buy a lens with a lower grade.

Once again, though, my dial-up connection through the PLDT lines is being funky and temperamental, so I'm using the Bayantel phone line to dial up to the internet (and that's how addicted I am to updating this journal, by the way). There's nothing wrong with my prepaid internet time; it's just that the PLDT line is so full of static nowadays.

10:10 AM Over AIM last night:

Amidala 983: My sister will be waking me tomorrow as part of her psych project
cyberlizard0: eh?
Amidala 983: she wants to catch me in the middle of a dream and then make me retell it
cyberlizard0: i read somewhere that waking people in the middle of REM/dream sleep makes them cranky
Amidala 983: well... that's true
Amidala 983: but anything for a sibling
cyberlizard0: well, sweet dreams then. :) hope they're not too sweet that you bite at your sis for waking you up. ;-)
Amidala 983: the way my dreams have been going as of late, that won't be a problem.

And all I can do is heave a big sigh, because Marielle didn't use me as a guinea pig. I woke up all by myself mumbling something about traffic jams.

10:34 PM I'm off to bed now, since Marielle is planning to make me her guinea pig tomorrow morning. She's going to wait until I'm in REM sleep, then wake me up to ask me about my dream. Granted, I'll be groggy (not to mention grumpy), but since she's my sister I have to help her out. Ü

I wonder if the nickname "Raccoon Eyes" will ever be applied to me. I hope not, but I haven't been getting very restful sleep lately. I could be coming down with something since I got rain-spattered two days ago, and that could be causing some physiological problems manifested in my dreams. Otherwise, it must be the stress; Ma'am P__'s Research subject hasn't been very kind to me lately--she always, always seems to come up with a way to make me feel like a complete idiot.

10:52 AM I think I'm losing hope that Dijurido.net will ever get back up, because now I'm seriously considering moving this journal back here permanently. Any thoughts on that? Selene, my beloved host, where are you?

10:39 AM Guess what? One of my former professors made the news last night. Ü Dr. Carolina Hernandez of UP Diliman's Department of Political Science took the oath yesterday as part of the independent fact-finding commission investigating the events that took place in Makati two weeks ago.

Professor Hernandez taught Political Science 145 in my final undergraduate year. She took us through a whole semester reading the classic political philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, and Macchiavelli among others. She's an excellent teacher, and it was one of the most memorable subjects I ever had. I wonder if she still remembers me?

12:47 PM Obviously, Dijurido.net is down, or else I wouldn't have uploaded this site here temporarily. I just hope DifferentHost gets its act together, so that Selene can have her domain back up.

In the meantime, I would like to tell everyone that I'm still alive and I'm here over at Portland. Ü Mahirap patayin ang masamang damo...

10:36 AM Doesn't my new layout look rather moody? Well, you might say I took off from the Vanilla Coke campaign here in the Philippines (which had a very Dick Tracy look to it). I don't know where to get inspiration, with all the schoolwork I just did last week.

I'm also having problems with Higher Learning's email submission form, since I found out recently that Portland, my host for that site as well as for Dreams and Rebel Heart, had disabled Sendmail on their servers. Where can I find a nice free email form host? Preferably one that has as few ads and popups as possible. If all else fails I'm going to route the submissions for Higher Learning to the email script I installed here in my space on Dijurido.net.